


roses, bel air

by kokiri



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Developing Relationship, Los Angeles, M/M, Poverty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-26
Updated: 2017-11-26
Packaged: 2019-02-07 02:04:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,134
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12830994
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kokiri/pseuds/kokiri
Summary: didn't anyone ever tell you it's okay to shine?





	roses, bel air

**Author's Note:**

> hi i missed soonwoo.

A grand, two-story villa, soft pink stucco – the kind you only really see in California. There’s a tennis court in the back. Wonwoo has always wanted to learn how to play, but he can’t find the time, not with his schedule. Being the beloved plastic surgeon of LA’s elite has left him with no time to enjoy the beauty of their multimillion dollar home.

And in this particular fantasy, Soonyoung is doing what he normally wants to do - he’s dancing. Not make sandwiches for pennies in the afternoon and standing glassy-eyed and miserable behind the counter at 7-Eleven in the evenings. He’s dancing at his leisure, and teaching classes to the children of celebrities when he feels like he needs to be a bit engaged.

“Children?” Soonyoung asks.

“Hmm. Not this time. I want to be untethered and completely fucking selfish.”

“So, like… you right now.”

“Sure,” Wonwoo agrees. “Imagine just – a you and me type of life. Just every day, you. And me. And no one else. We don’t even like our regular brunch crew.”

“Course not, but we go just because they invite us and our biggest worry in life is keeping up appearances. Oh no, we have to sit through bottomless mimosas and fifty-dollar avocado toast! Ohhh noooo!”

“We’ll be those annoying young professionals that ruin all the hip spots downtown. Record shopping like we’re looking for something really obscure. All that kind of stuff.” Wonwoo starts his car and peers over his shoulder, backing out of his shoddy parallel parking job. The inhabitants of this neighborhood are likely soon to notice that his beat-up Mazda doesn’t belong amongst the scenery. Anyway, he knows that Soonyoung’s shift at the 7-Eleven starts in about thirty minutes.

And with that, they drag themselves back into reality. 

 

 

 

 

Wonwoo remembers how it started.

For the third time that week, they were sitting over kimchi soon tofu at BCD Tofu House; Wonwoo was studying his ass off for some exam he couldn’t give less of a shit about and telling Soonyoung that he could dig the quarters out of the floorboard of his car to pay for his utilities if he needed. It was one in the morning and Soonyoung had these dark circles under his eyes, the kind that never went away no matter how much he slept.

“You know,” Soonyoung said, “I’m fucking tired of digging for change to pay my bills.”

“Then we should head out east,” Wonwoo said. “Leave this place behind.”

Soonyoung laughed, because the funniest joke in the world was the two of them severing their ties to only home they had never known or cared to know. Deciding that maybe there _is_ somewhere out there with which their souls could become entwined the same way they were in a constant dance, a perpetual breathless motion, with Los Angeles.

At around two, they decided it was time to head home. To Soonyoung’s home, where Wonwoo frequently made a bed out of the lumpy couch in the living room. But Wonwoo took a detour on the way home that night.

“Larchmont?” Soonyoung asked, because they never drove that way. It was in the opposite direction of Soonyoung’s apartment and there was typically nothing of interest for the two of them in the neighborhood, particularly not at two in the morning.

“Sometimes I just like to drive through here,” Wonwoo said, not really thinking much of it. But he liked to place himself inside of the homes – the cute, bungalow style setups, many of them set back far enough so that the owners were allowed the privilege of a front yard – something Wonwoo had concluded a couple of years ago he would probably never have. “I like to pretend I’m all done with school and I’ve got a good job. And I’m living in one of these houses.”

“And you _own_ the house in this fantasy, I assume?” Soonyoung asked.

“Of course. I’d never put myself out that much in my own escapist fantasy world. I own the house. I’m ready for a family. Life is good. Koreatown’s just a few minutes away. Never too comfortable for cheap stew at midnight.”

“Really,” Soonyoung agreed. “I never want to reach that point. Kill me before then. But… I guess I get it. Comfortable means… not dumping change into a Coinstar machine to pay your bills. I can vibe with that.”

“That’s what I’m saying. It just makes me feel good for a few minutes.” Wonwoo laughed nervously, but Soonyoung looked at him like it all really mattered. Like it really made sense.

Wonwoo left the neighborhood of his moderately wild dreams and drove back in the direction of Soonyoung’s apartment. They walked up the green-carpeted staircase in relative silence, commenting only briefly on the weather.

And that night they didn’t sleep. While Soonyoung was trying to open a bottle of cheap beer against the edge of the kitchen counter, Wonwoo leaned over and kissed him. Soonyoung dropped the bottle on the floor and stumbled over a few faintly incoherent sentences before he gave up and laughed.

That was a step in the right direction.  A vague and nameless direction, but one that felt right.

 

 

 

 

“So, how about this. I’m a writer,” Wonwoo says.

“Oh, it’s one of those. Morbid writer Wonwoo stubbornly refuses to live in New York City, right?”

“Why _must_ I live in New York City?” Wonwoo asks, appalled.

“Because all writers live in New York City! And they walk down the street and have an existential breakdown over every pretty girl they see. And they’re drunks and have terrible relationships.”

“No, no, no. Absolutely not. I’m a writer – a decently good writer, because I bought us this house – ” Wonwoo gestures to the deceptively modest white Spanish style home in front of them. “ – but I’m not a pretentious fuck.” He guesses this home would probably go for about two million if it were on the market. There’s a nice balcony at the front above the three-car garage – a balcony is a must for moody writer Wonwoo.

“Then if you’re a shitty writer, I’m thinking I’m a movie producer. I don’t really know what they do, but I figure I just put my name on a bunch of shit, rake in tons of money, and don’t worry about a damn thing.”

“Sure, I like it. It’s like, we _could_ live in a nicer house, but we’re choosing not to. This is a modest living for us.”

“It’s for the kids. So they don’t grow up with issues.”

“But they’re going to grow up with issues anyway, since they’re being raised by us. When the nanny’s not around.”

“Ah yes. The emotionally unavailable you and the overly emotional me.”

“But I think they’ll turn out okay,” Wonwoo says. “They won’t want for anything, and that’s a good foundation to start with. They won’t know what it’s like to live – well, like us.”

“But is it really so bad?” Soonyoung asks sincerely. He leans his head against the passenger window and curls into himself a bit. “Between everything… the anxiety and the stress of it all… I have moments of happiness. Real, genuine happiness. Don’t you?”

“Sure I do. Like right now. Looking at you. Talking to you.”

Soonyoung turns to him and bursts into this ridiculous grin like that’s the best thing he’s ever heard in his entire life. “So… what does this mean?” he asks, all giddy. “That you’re… my boyfriend? And I’m… your boyfriend? Can we finally start using that word?”

“Sure,” Wonwoo says, surprised at the ease with which he agrees. He’d always told himself he’d be in control of that moment, whenever it was meant to happen.

Seems like he was wrong, and that is fine.

 

 

 

 

Admittedly, it’s a phone call Wonwoo would rather not receive.

“S-so…” Soonyoung stutters.

“Hmm?”

“I need you to come pick me up. At the police station.”

“Huh…” Wonwoo says, not really hearing what Soonyoung is saying. Then he shoots up out of bed and screams, “What?!” so loud his upstairs neighbors stomp on the floor to let him know he needs to shut the fuck up.

“My store was robbed,” Soonyoung says. Like it’s nothing. Like it’s not the scariest fucking thing that’s ever happened.

Wonwoo is rummaging through the dirty clothes on his floor for a sweater, slides on his sneakers and is out the door in thirty seconds flat.

When he sees Soonyoung at the police station, Soonyoung doesn’t seem to be in bad sorts. He’s clutching a lukewarm cup of coffee in Styrofoam cup like it’s the source of his entire lifeforce. He doesn’t greet Wonwoo with much more than a small nod.

“Soonyoung, what happened?” Wonwoo asks, his voice getting caught up in his throat all pathetic-like. Like he has a right to be crying. Like Soonyoung’s not the one who should be on the ground in a hopeless panic.

“I told you,” Soonyoung says calmly. “My store got robbed. Got a gun shoved in my face. Cool, huh?”

Wonwoo lets out a single choked, errant sob, and then promptly holds his breath to stop himself from completely losing his mind. He finally lets his breath out when it seems Soonyoung doesn’t have much more to say. “Are you fucking serious?” he asks. They climb into Wonwoo’s car and he watches Soonyoung place his coffee in the cup holder and snap his seat belt secure. He watches every single movement Soonyoung makes, because he can’t fathom a world where Soonyoung is not sitting next him in this junked up old car anymore. Can’t accept a timeline where Soonyoung just ceases to be.

“This is what I’m tired of,” Soonyoung says quietly.

“I know.”

Traffic’s light at this hour. Wonwoo drives around aimlessly just because. Moving feels better than the idea of going home and having to face this in the confining walls of Soonyoung’s shitty apartment, somehow makes him feel like his nervous limbs are exerting all the hellish energy they are so desperate to get rid of.

“When it happened – it’s so fucking stupid, Wonwoo.”

“No. Tell me.”

“I’m digging twenties and change out of the register. And I’m not thinking much of anything. But there’s this thought in the back of my head. I’m thinking of me, and Wonwoo, and a mansion in Bel Air. And no one can hurt me. No one can even get close to me.”

 It’s a familiar kind of dream to Wonwoo. Stone gargoyles sit terrifying outside of the gate that keeps them safe. There are roses at every turn. And it’s beautiful. Wonwoo’s cheeks feel hot under the tears that have finally pushed their way free despite his best efforts. “I’ll get you there someday, Soonyoung,” he says.

“No. You won’t. And it’s fine.”

“Don’t say that. I swear. We always keep dreaming. Okay? Because it’s all we fucking have. And it’s okay. It’s okay to want things. Didn’t anyone ever fucking tell you that? It’s what keeps us going. It’s the point of being alive. I fucking mean it.”

Soonyoung is laughing by the time Wonwoo is finished and Wonwoo just wants to scream at him. What the fuck, really?

“So, we’re gonna keep going?” Soonyoung asks.

Wonwoo blinks, confused. “Of course?”

“Really?”

“Really. Soonyoung. I love you. Do you understand that?”

Soonyoung isn’t laughing anymore. “I love you, too,” he says, sounding suspiciously close to crying. “I really love you a lot.”

“Close your eyes,” Wonwoo says. He has an idea.

“Okay…” Soonyoung says, like he doesn’t fully trust Wonwoo.

“Don’t open them till I say so.”

It’s a quick drive back to back to Soonyoung’s apartment. Wonwoo puts his hazards on and stops right square in front of it.

“Open your eyes,” he says, wincing preemptively against whatever reaction Soonyoung might have to seeing the place he hates so much.

“Here,” Soonyoung says. It's gentle, almost disappointed. But a bit like he had been expecting it the entire time. Because where else did the two of them have to go?

“Yes. Here. Not much, right? Heating and plumbing probably hasn’t been updated since the seventies. The exterior leaves much to be desire. There’s no tennis court out back, that’s for fucking sure. And it gets so hot in the summer it makes us want to climb out of our skin. But I want you to understand – right now, this is where I want to be. This is where I want to be _with you._ ”

“Wonwoo the anxious college student. Soonyoung the dead-end job loser.”

“Yeah.”

“And this is where we want to be.”

“ _Exactly_ where we want to be.”

Soonyoung snorts like Wonwoo just told him something ridiculous. But his eyes soften. He grabs Wonwoo’s hand and brings it to his lips.

“Then I’ll take it,” he says.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you very much for reading!! you can catch me on [twitter](https://www.twitter.com/silvites) where i love making new friends.


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